Afterglow
by mcmachine
Summary: 13x16. How it should have been.


Hi friends! It's been a long time since I've written anything. Super busy and thriving. Just wanted to write something short and sweet as I was feeling nostalgic. If you're looking for me on Twitter – I deleted the old one and am now at clinicaljillian.

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Morning sunlight breaks through cracked blinds, basking the room in a yellow glow.

April had woken up exactly seventeen minutes ago from the warm daylight, eyes wide with the refresh that came from a well-earned sleep. The pillow beneath her was hard: Jackson's chest, not the bougie goose feather pillows that she'd first encountered upon moving in with him and never been able to let go of.

Little goosebumps appeared across his skin as she let go of the content breath that she was holding onto. He gave the slightest stir but didn't quite rise from his slumber. Jackson had always been a heavy sleeper. It was a good thing for him, honestly – made it easy for him to sleep through her coming in late from night shifts in the emergency room or go down for half an hour in an on-call room. She was the opposite. Light as a bird when it came to sleeping. But most of the time, she doesn't mind it. It was peaceful to just watch him sleep like this. She hadn't felt this particular peace in a long time.

A few more minutes pass before Jackson finally began to stir out of the deep slumber that he had fallen into overnight. He had worn himself out, too. It's not much of a surprise. The fraught tension of the last few weeks and the success of yesterday's case had built up to this moment.

"Hey," her voice is a whisper across his skin, just pulling him out from under.

"Mm," Jackson hummed in a daze. "Morning."

"Morning," she echoed with a smile breaking across her features. "You look like you want to stay asleep."

"Uh-huh." A yawn interrupted him suddenly, loud and stretching open his mouth. "It's always easier sleeping next to you."

It's been over a year since the two of them had signed the divorce papers. They still slept in the same house, but not in the same bedroom. The guest bedroom became April's, the spare room became Harriet's nursery. They hadn't slept in the same bed since Harriet had been conceived. Yet despite all of the distance that had been placed in the valleys between them, they were crossed with ease, conquered back to one another as if it had just been yesterday. It may as well have been. Home was not a place, but a person. Theirs was one another.

"Yeah," she breathed out in quiet agreement after a moment passed. "Yeah, it is." Without thinking about it, she snuggled up closer to him, an arm wrapping around his frame and hugging him tightly.

One of his arms is thrown around her easily, thumb drawing circles against her bare skin. It's soft. It always had been. Even if things had changed between them, their dynamic, the ebb and flow… some things were the same.

Lying there, Jackson can't help but think about the things that had changed between them. He had pushed so hard for the divorce… and for what? There had been a couple of attempts at dating other women, sure. But every girl was compared to April and every girl fell short because they weren't her. It was her. It had always been her. There was a part of him that felt like he had failed her. Failed them. Maybe even failed Harriet. She deserved two parents together, two parents who loved each other more than life itself. April had that. He hadn't. She seemed better for it.

He can feel her gaze on him, silent curiosity.

"I know why my mother sent you," he finally broke the silence that had fallen between them and could feel her relax a little, even if her gaze remained trained intently on his face. "Wanted me to have some backup. She must've figured I was probably gonna see him and knew better than to try and talk me out of it." Jackson had thought that he was subtle when it came to seeking him out, but nothing slipped by Catherine.

"She wanted me here," April echoed the sentiment.

He gave a slight nod of my head, "Just in case."

"That is so Catherine."

"I was gonna say infuriating," he huffed out. "But yeah."

"Jackson, I know what a good father is." As April began speaking, he could feel the heaviness in his heart changing. Evolving. "I've had one my whole life. You are a good father. You took us both in. You took care of her when I couldn't. And you haven't stopped taking care of either of us since. Even with everything that's happened between us… you never bailed. And he couldn't do that." Lifting. "You came here to tell him something. Don't leave till you do."

Jackson was silent for a long moment as he processed everything that she had just said. Deep down, there as a part of him that knew she was right: he had stuck around even when things were impossibly complicated, even if their marriage had broken. He could never leave her, never leave Harriet behind – the two of them were irrevocably bonded with one another, even if there were no legal ties binding them as husband and wife. No power in the universe could change that and there was nothing left that could come between it. Now, he didn't want anything left between them. He'd always felt like he was the best version of himself when he was with her. He didn't want to be anything less, not for her or for Harriet.

"I won't." The words finally come out of him after a few thoughtful moments. "I just want to be here with you, just a little while longer." He confessed.

"Okay," April beamed up at him, her eyes sparkling.

"And I don't want this to be the last time, either." The words come pouring out of him before he had the chance to consider it. "I know… you say that I've done right by you and by Harriet, but I haven't, April. I didn't give you a fair chance. I didn't give us a fair chance, after Samuel…" There's a heavy pause, swallowing the reemergence of heartbreak. "I should have tried harder to understand."

Making amends. Even if it was something that he wasn't going to be able to get with his father, it didn't mean that he couldn't get them. There was a more important bond in his life that needed repairing.

"I should have stayed." Her hand squeezed his. "You weren't the only one who screwed up, Jackson. Don't carry that by yourself. We both did." She sighed quietly. "Equal partners in the action of no longer being equal partners."

"Yeah," he breathed out. "Yeah, I guess we did. I don't know. It– maybe it shouldn't matter now, but it does. I miss you, April. I miss this. _Us_. I don't just meet the hotel room stuff, either."

"I do too." The words that come from her were quiet but no less powerful.

Jackson shifted himself, pressing a kiss against the top of her head. "Can we try again?"

"I'd like that."


End file.
